Dinghy Club Championships at Warsash Sailing Club
by Richard Jarman 29 May 2025 14:27 BST
17 May 2025
Dinghy Club Championships at Warsash © Richard Jarman
The annual Dinghy Championship at Warsash Sailing Club was held on Sat 17th May. This is fast becoming THE event at the club to participate in, with 68 boats entered, representing the full range of dinghy classes, experience levels and ages.
With our recent accreditation as an RYA Pathway Club it was great to see a large contingent of youth and junior sailors in Optimists, Teras, Toppers and ILCAs out racing with the adults. This was bolstered by a strong showing from the RS fleets with 200s, 300s, 400s and 600s all competing.
Particularly pleasing was the appearance of some of our Adult Sailing cohort, who whilst still early in their sailing careers are keen to develop their skills and try them out in a racing situation. With a mix of other classes from a Yachting World Dayboat to a Laser 5000, there was truly something for everyone.
Whilst the sun gods delivered the requested bright sunshine, the wind gods started with a day off. As the wind forecast was from at least three quadrants, it was always going to be a challenging day. Luckily, our race officer, Peter Knight, did a stunning job of running three races for four fleets in 3.5 hours, including resetting the course at least twice.
The wind did settle to a mostly SW direction, but with some large shifts in the mix to help the tactical battles. Electing to run average laps around a quadrilateral course, the slow and junior fleets sailed a slightly shorter course until the final race, which was an all or nothing race for overall champion, all fleets on the same course, but class starts.
The plea from this author was for generous room at marks and in boat on boat crossing, given the relative speeds and experience levels. He observed all of that and more which, judging by the smiles afterwards, meant a good day for all.
The variety of classes is really demonstrated in the results. In the fast fleet, Ian and Andy Budgen benefitted from the extra Laser 5000 horsepower to win from Andy and Maddie Blundell in an RS400, with Tim Norris in third in an RS600. In the medium fleet, our growing RS200 fleet was well represented in first place with Mark Thomas and Alex Ling and third place by Merrick Stanley and Victoria Upton, split in second place by John Heyes in his Finn.
In the Slow fleet, James Moreland sailing with son Milo (again, our youngest competitor) in a YW Dayboat won from Kerry Morgan in a Streaker and Kyle Wood in an ILCA 6. In the Junior fleet it was an Optimist 1,2,3 with William F in first, from Skye K in second, and Bear T in third.
After a fair amount of number crunching and following a VAR review, the overall champion for the club champs was declared as James and Milo Moreland.
The prize-giving was held in the garden of Shore House, in the blazing sunshine with catering from the youth and junior section and one of their famous Sausage Sizzles, with pizza provided by the Warsash Woodfired Pizza Company. Our huge thanks to both North Sails and Baltic for the selection of goodies handed out to the prize winners.
Such an event cannot operate without a big team of volunteers, and our thanks go to all the race committee, rib drivers and crews, bar volunteers, results processor and trophy cleaner!
Full results
Keen to find out more about Warsash SC? All are invited to our Open Day on Saturday May 31st.